On December 9th, during the climate talks in France, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and Scientific American’s David Biello met to talk about the role of technological innovation in meeting the climate challenge. Here’s a brief portion of their conversation.   

[DB:] How can doubts about climate change in the American context be overcome at this point?

[EM:] Why do you think there are doubts?

[DB:] Because people tell me they have doubts, Senators—

[EM:] There are such statements made by a narrow slice of the population.

[DB:] It happens to be an important, narrow slice of the population.

[EM:] Look, I think public opinion is clearly evolving to understand and to support the idea that we need to act on climate change. We are seeing all kinds of constituencies of relevance—military, religious leaders, businesses, labor—all saying, "We gotta act, and guys, it's probably better if we could just get some certainty about where we're going now." I just don't believe the noise in the system will be sustainable much longer. It's just time that we don't debate what's not debatable…and just get down to the business of what's the scope, the scale, the pace at which we address it. And I would say that’s a legitimate discussion to have…So I think the innovation agenda—pursuing climate-risk mitigation, pursuing energy security issues, I don’t mean just for us, I mean for everyone, pursuing the issues of satisfying our social responsibilities to help two billion people get some semblance of appropriate energy services—that's all wrapped into this innovation agenda.

A transcript of the full conversation between Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and Scientific American’s David Biello is available on our website, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/accelerated-innovation-is-the-ultimate-solution-to-climate-change/.
 

—David Biello and Steve  Mirsky
 

[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]